question by an evasive answer. I recollect hearing Sir John Fielding giving an instance of this, in the case of an Irish fellow who was brought before him when sitting as a magistrate at Bow Street. He was desired to give some account of himself, and where he came from. Wishing to pass for an Englishman, he said he came from Chester. This he pronounced with a very rich brogue, which caught the ears of Sir John. 'Why, were you ever in Chester?' says he. 'To be sure, I was,' said Pat; 'wasn't I born there?' 'How dare you,' said Sir John Fielding, 'with that brogue, which shows that you are an Irishman, pretend to have been born in Chester.' 'I didn't say I was born there,' says he; 'I only asked your honour whether I was or not.'"

Fraser's Magazine.

THE NATURALIST.

NUTRIA FUR.

[We quote the following account of Nutria from the Dictionary of Commerce, by Mr. Macculloch, who believes it to be the first description that has appeared in any English work, and acknowledges it from the pen of J. Broderip, Esq., F.R.S., &c.]

Nutria, or Neutria, the commercial name for the skins of Myopotamus Bonariensis (Commerson,) the Coypou of Molina, and the Quoiya of D'Azara. In France, the skins were, and perhaps still are, sold under the name of racoonda; but in England they are imported as nutria skins—deriving their appellation, most probably, from some supposed similarity of the animal which produces them, in appearance and habits, to the otter, the Spanish name for which is nutria. Indeed, Molina speaks of the coypou as a species of water rat, of the size and colour of the otter.

Nutria fur is largely used in the hat manufacture; and has become, within the last fifteen or twenty years, an article of very considerable commercial importance. From 600,000 to 800,000 skins, principally from the Rio de la Plata, are now annually imported into Great Britain. It is also very extensively used on the continent. Geoffroy mentions, that in certain years, a single French furrier (M. Bechem,) has received from 15,000 to 20,000 skins.

The coypou or quoiya is a native of South America, very common in the provinces of Chili, Buenos Ayres, and Tucuman, but more rare in Paraguay. In size it is less than the beaver, which it resembles in many points. The head is large and depressed, the ears small and rounded, the neck stout and short, the muzzle sharper than that of the beaver, and the whiskers very long and stiff. There are, as in the beaver, two incisor teeth, and eight molar, above and below—twenty teeth in all. The limbs are short. The fore feet have each five fingers not webbed, the thumb being very small: the hind feet have the same number of toes; the great toe and three next toes being joined by a web which extends to their ends, and the little toe being free, but edged with a membrane on its inner side. The nails are compressed, long, crooked, and sharp. The tail, unlike that of the beaver, is long, round, and hairy; but the hairs are not numerous, and permit the scaly texture of the skin in this part to be seen. The back is of a brownish red, which becomes redder on the flanks: the belly is of a dirty red. The edges of the lips and extremity of the muzzle are white.

Like the beaver, the coypou is furnished with two kinds of fur; viz. the long ruddy hair which gives the tone of colour, and the brownish ash-coloured fur at its base, which, like the down of the beaver, is of such importance in hat-making, and the cause of the animal's commercial value.

The habits of the coypou are much like those of most of the other aquatic rodent animals. Its principal food, in a state of nature, is vegetable. It affects the neighbourhood of water, swims perfectly well, and burrows in the ground. The female brings forth from five to seven; and the young always accompany her.

The coypou is easily domesticated, and its manners in captivity are very mild.

NOTES OF A READER.

RECORDS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.

(From the Edinburgh Review, just published.)

[These stores are of invaluable interest, particularly with reference to the earlier and most obscure portions of our history.]

An immense collection of royal letters and state papers, miscellaneous rolls relating to the revenue, expenditure, debts and accounts of the Crown, New Year's gifts, the royal household, mint, foreign bills of exchange, military and naval affairs, instruments relating to treaties, truces, and infractions of peace, chiefly between England and France; mercantile matters, foreign possessions of the Crown, proceedings in the Admiralty, military and other courts of the great officers of the Crown, pardons, protections, petitions, subsidy rolls, Scotch homage rolls, pardon rolls, privy seals, signet bills, writs of various descriptions from Edward I. to Edward IV., exist there, without calendar or index; and in such masses as to defy the patience of any inquirer, however ardent. It need not be said that in such a variety of documents their value must vary considerably, or that many of them are of little use; but each of them is at least worthy of being examined; and there are few of them which, if properly scrutinized by apt labourers, would not at least contribute to the elucidation or ratification of some branch of history. Some of them would render still more important services; and, by pointing out the daily habits and most familiar occurrences of the lives of our kings and other eminent personages who figure in our history, lead us to a much more accurate estimate of their genius than any that has hitherto been formed. With this view, the close rolls are amongst the most minute and interesting of those documents which remain unexplored. The character of King John has had but scanty justice done to it; and perhaps those who have formed their notions of that monarch from the ordinary accounts of him, will be surprised to find him writing to the Abbot of Reading to acknowledge the receipt of "six volumes of books, containing the whole of the Old Testament, Master Hugh de St. Victor's treatise on the Sacraments, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the Epistles of St. Augustine on the City of God, and on the 3rd part of the Psalter, Valerian de Moribus, Origen's treatise on the Old Testament, and Candidus Arianus to Marius;"—and that on another occasion shortly afterwards he acknowledges the receipt of "his copy of Pliny," which had been in the custody of the same Abbot. Still less does it consist with the commonly adopted notions of his selfish tyranny, that he should address Bryan de Insula in terms like the following: "Know that we are quite willing that our chief barons, concerning whom you wrote to us, may hunt while passing through your bailiwick, provided that you know who they are and what they take; for we do not keep our forests, nor our beasts, for our own use only, but for the use also of our faithful subjects. See, however, that they are well guarded on account of robbers, for the beasts are more frightened by robbers than by the aforesaid barons." Of the reign of Henry III. the particulars are still more minute. Notwithstanding its connexion with superstitions which exist no longer, we may sympathize with the pious charity that suggested that monarch's order "for feeding as many poor persons as can enter the greater and lesser hall at Westminster on Friday next after the octaves of St. Matthew, being the anniversary of Eleanor, the King's sister, formerly Queen of Scotland, for the good of the said Eleanor's soul." His taste for the fine arts, and his encouragement of its professors, are frequently to be traced in the entries upon these rolls. In one of them he gives directions for having the great chamber at Westminster